Fire In The Mind: Leonard Wise Book 1

by Arjay Lewis

  Norris shifted from my eyes and turned to McGee. “What are you trying to pull, McGee?” He backed away from us both and moved to another open space in the clutter of his cramped quarters. “What is this guy, a freakin’ witch or something?”

  “Mister Norris, believe it or not, we’re here to protect you,” I said, and gave a glance to McGee to back me up. “We have reason to believe you could end up the victim of a fire.”

  The color fell out of Norris’s face, which instantly made his unhealthy pallor look almost deathlike. He attempted bravado, but I could tell it was forced. “What do you mean, a fire?”

  “Come on, Norris,” McGee said. “You did the research on Nova. Lonny said you uncovered a bunch of questionable torchings. Seems like a convenient way to get rid of someone who knows too much.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Norris said, a red flush rapidly covering his pale skin like a bad paint job. “The Nova Corporation just happens to be one of my clients.”

  “They hired you? When did this happen?” McGee demanded as color rose in his own cheeks.

  “That’s none of your business,” Norris sputtered.

  It didn’t matter whether I could still sense his thoughts—he did not possess much of a poker face, and looked guiltier than hell.

  “A few days ago, right after Mishan died,” I guessed.

  Norris’s eyes widened and his brow furrowed. “You aren’t a witch,” he said, raising an arm in my direction. “You’re like that guy on television—the one who talks to dead people.”

  “All you need to know, Norris, is that you’re in danger,” McGee said, stepping closer to the man in order to tower over him. “But if you level with me, I might be able to save your fat ass.”

  “What do you want?” Norris asked, and loosened his huge collar a little more.

  Danger…

  I could feel the buzz, faint but there. Along with it was the sense that we were rapidly running out of time. Even though it was McGee’s call, and I was just tagging along, I spoke up. “The copy you kept of the Nova file.”

  He frowned again. “How can you know about that?”

  “Never mind!” McGee bellowed.

  “Just get it,” I pleaded as I moved toward the window and looked out on the street.

  He’s near…

  The man in black was nearby and getting close. He was on his way with one purpose, to remove a loose end. “Then we have to clear out of here.”

  “What do you mean?” Norris said, not budging.

  I turned to McGee. I felt warm. “Bill, we’re running out of time.”

  McGee nodded. “It’s your choice, Norris. I can take off and come back with a warrant, but all that might be left of you is barbecue.”

  The fat man looked from McGee to me and back again. Then he moved with surprising speed for a man so large. He opened a cabinet and took out a locked box, then spun a few numbers on a dial on the front and it opened.

  Out of the box, he pulled a large manila folder, which he offered to McGee. As McGee took it, the man pulled out a small revolver and slipped it into his pocket.

  “What are you doing, Norris?”

  “I got a carry permit,” Norris said, pulling a paper from his wallet that he held out to McGee. “I protect payroll shipments, you know.”

  McGee glanced at the paper. “You don’t lift anything heavier than a donut, Norris. But the permit is legit.”

  He’s here…

  “Mister Norris, you should take anything you really need,” I said, as I began to feel more than warm, actually hot.

  Danger…

  The buzz was rapidly turning into a scream. I turned to Bill. “We have to go!”

  “Norris, you come with us,” McGee said. “I need to know where you got this information.”

  But Roswell Norris was busy looking around his office, as if the mess were of inestimable value, trying to think what was truly precious among the stacks of chaos.

  “You really think my office is going to burn down?” he whined, his voice piteous, almost blubbering.

  I looked at him, deadly serious. “Yes. And you’re going to burn with it if you don’t get out.” I turned back to Bill. “We have to go, NOW!”

  Bill, with the file held high, headed for the door. “Now or never, Norris.”

  Norris gave one last look at his life’s work, and with nothing except the large lock box clutched in his hands, followed us out the door.

  We went into the hall, which had the smell of a sauna as a dry heat pervaded the air. It stung my nose.

  “Hey, the landlord finally turned on the heat,” Norris said, unsure if he was making a joke or not.

  We walked without delay to the staircase, and McGee touched the doorknob, then pulled his hand away.

  “It’s hot,” he said.

  I looked around the hallway. “Bill, we should warn anyone else who is here. Get them out.”

  Bill nodded. He covered his hand with his coat and pulled the door open. I looked in.

  A flash of flames shot through the door, engulfing me. I stepped back, fire on my arms and head, burning my hair.

  Then, all at once, it was gone.

  “What’s wrong?” Bill said, watching me wince. The door just past him lay open, and the stairway was as dark as on our way up. Cool air blew in and carried the stench of ripe garbage.

  “This place will be on fire any minute!” I said as I tried to center myself. It was a vision, but so intense that it shook me.

  Must go now…

  “Get him out,” McGee said and gave Norris the manila folder. “I’ll run to the rooms here, flash my badge, that’ll do it.”

  “This is nuts!” Norris protested. “How do you know that there will be a fire?”

  I pushed Norris in the direction of the stairs. “The same way I knew about your file. Now move!”

  He began to descend the stairs, his hands on the dirty walls to support himself on the way down. We reached the second-floor landing, and he paused to breathe heavily.

  “I…uh…usually take the elevator,” he gasped. It was even hotter on this landing.

  “Keep going, get out into the street,” I said, and then took the envelope from him and shoved the unwieldy bundle into the waistband of my slacks, against the small of my back, where my jacket covered it. “Stay out of sight, he’s out there.”

  “Who?”

  “Your friend from Nova, the man in black with the sunglasses.”

  “Jack?” Norris said, blanching a bit. “Should I hide?”

  “You’re the private eye. Do what you do when you follow someone!” I said and pushed the door open to the second floor. Norris nodded and continued down the stairs. With the envelope, I began to go from room to room, knocking on doors and yelling “FIRE” at the top of my lungs.

  Faces began to appear at the doors, mostly men. I repeated my shout, and they quickly made their way to the stairs.

  “Where is it?” one man asked as he stepped into the hall and locked his door.

  “Third floor,” I shouted, “can’t you feel how hot it is?”

  Without any further questions, the men moved quickly to the stairs. It surprised me that they didn’t push or claw, but went in an orderly fashion. I saw several who went down the wrong hall.

  “This way!” I said. “You need to go down the stairs.”

  “There’s another exit— different stairs!” one of the men yelled over his shoulder to me, as he pointed down the hall to drive the message home.

  I took a moment and leaned on my cane. I wanted to head outside now. I wondered if everyone was out of the building, would Hallman spare the place? It was hard to say, he got his jollies by burning things, and it was clear he liked there to be victims.

  I was walking toward the first stairwell when
I was struck by an unearthly silence. I felt as if pressure was building up behind my eyeballs. My flesh was warm, and I could feel sweat covering my body all at once, like a protective layer of moisture.

  TOO LATE…

  I stopped and stepped back, my instincts on high alert, and I knew something was about to happen.

  There was an odd whooshing noise, and the door to an office up ahead—where I would have been standing if I hadn’t backed up—flew off its hinges. This was followed by a red-orange burst of flames. I stepped further back as a loud percussion broke the eerie silence and the sound of the explosion filled my ears as if I were inside of it. A wave of hot air knocked me off my feet, and I fell, trying to roll as I hit the floor.

  I looked up to see the entire hallway on fire, which blocked the stairs I’d descended. The exploded doorway was charred like a gaping maw, a wall of flames where the door had been.

  I pulled myself to my feet with my cane as a burning liquid oozed along the floor, trails of flame in its wake.

  I hurriedly limped in the direction I’d seen the other men go with the hope that exit wasn’t cut off. I had only one chance because soon this hallway would be an inferno. The air grew thick with the dark smoke, which bit at my nose and stung my throat. The hallway now had a thick haze, giving everything a ghostly look.

  It happens so fast, I thought to myself. And another thought came unbidden: That wasn’t his power. There was something incendiary—maybe a bomb. He planned this, planted explosives he could activate at any time.

  I began to cough and knew I would have to get close to the floor and crawl if I didn’t find the door soon. The vapor had grown dense, and I moved through a fog that allowed me to see only a few feet on either side. I looked up to see an unlit lighting fixture, a triangular bulb with the word “Exit” stenciled on it in chipped and faded red paint. The door was to my left as I pushed through and slammed it behind me.

  The air was cooler in the stairway, and even though it held the scent of the garbage, to me it smelled sweet. I turned to find that the lights in this vestibule were completely out. It was utterly black and windowless. For a moment, I felt panic rise up in my throat. What if instead of a hallway, I’d accidentally stepped into someone’s office and was trapped here?

  I calmed myself with the knowledge that offices didn’t usually stink. I became aware of the moving air. The heat of the fire had created a breeze as it sucked air from the outside to feed itself. I might be temporarily unable to see, but I did have the good luck to be carrying the tool of any blind man. I gently tapped my cane in front of me, using it to feel for the stairs.

  A part of me wanted to run, but I knew that a tumble down a flight of stairs would do damage to my one good leg and trap me here permanently. I heard the sound of the cane striking metal and felt the vibration of the contact. Moving carefully forward, I touched a metal newel with my left hand. I held it tightly, and my cane dipped down the first stair.

  I leaned and grasped the railing, lowered my right leg down the first stair. Success! The marble step was under my foot. Even without my vision, I was able to move in my usual pattern going down a flight of stairs, holding tight to the banister in case a step was further away than I planned.

  In moments, I was down the steps and looking at a rectangle of light, which I guessed was sunlight as it leaked in around a door.

  I reached out and felt a crash bar beneath my grip, then shoved it. The light from the street poured in, dazzling my eyes. Even though it was afternoon and the sun was setting, it was still so bright, I held my hand up to shield my eyes as I stepped out into the street.

  I could feel a huge pair of arms grab me and lead me gingerly away from the building.

  “McGee?” I said, hoping it wasn’t Jack Hallman come to finish me off.

  “Yeah, it’s me, Len,” McGee’s voice rang out, and I found I sucked at the air greedily. I went from shielding my eyes to fluttering them. They stung from my encounter with the smoke.

  I coughed as I got across the street. The sound of fire engines grew nearer. McGee sat me on a bench, and his hand slapped my back—not lightly.

  “You’re smoldering,” he said. “There are burns all over your jacket.”

  “I’m damn lucky I didn’t get taken out,” I said as I rubbed my eyes and coughed a bit more. I fought to not lose my Mexican lunch. “There was…an explosion.”

  “I was down the stairs when I heard it. What the hell was it?”

  “A bomb or something…I don’t know,” I said, my voice sounding strained from all the smoke I’d inhaled. “It took an entire office with it. I think one floor below Norris’s.”

  McGee looked up at the building, and I raised my head to follow his gaze. Although I was standing at a different location than when I had my vision, it was eerily similar. The flames came out through a set of windows on the second floor and rose up on the outside of the building to the third.

  Danger…

  A buzz went off in my head—a sense of warning. My head shot back to McGee. “Where’s Norris?”

  “I thought he was with you,” McGee said, turned from me to study the crowd.

  “I sent him downstairs while I warned the second floor,” I said, my voice becoming more congested as I spoke, and I finished with a racking cough. I spat out a darkly colored bit of phlegm and tried to stand.

  “Easy, big fellow,” McGee said, giving me a helping hand.

  “Says the one man bigger than I am.”

  “I’m all muscle. You’re lithe.”

  “I wasn’t planning a career as a dancer. Any sign of him?”

  “I can’t see him. Perhaps he made a break for it. We parked across from his car.”

  “That banged-up monstrosity was his car?” I said. “Great idea for a detective, anyone could spot that!”

  “In this neighborhood, it fits right in. Can you walk?”

  “Yeah,” I said, and got my cane under me. McGee and I strode gingerly through the crowd on our way back to the parking lot. Several uniformed policemen had arrived, and they helped disperse the crowd as fire engines clamored onto the side street.

  “Shouldn’t you help?” I asked.

  “This isn’t my jurisdiction, and I’d only be in the way. I’ll talk to whoever is in charge once the fire is under control and we find Norris,” McGee said. “Not that I can offer much insight.”

  “You were—are—a witness.”

  “Not to very much, and I’m not sure what happened,” McGee said as we turned a corner. “How did you…”

  He stopped cold and stared into the distance. I was still blocked from what he could see by the corner of a building.

  “What is it?” I asked as I came around the corner. In the parking lot, McGee’s Chevy sat, unbothered. However, the older car I’d noticed when we arrived was on fire.

  McGee took off like a shot towards the flaming heap as I glanced around and tried to sense if Hallman was nearby, ready to ambush us. But I didn’t detect him. He’d accomplished his goal and left. I followed McGee, worried that he might try something foolish. The car was totally ablaze, and the gas tank could explode at any minute.

  I yelled to him, “There’s nothing you can do.”

  He got as close as the heat would let him, trying to see past the smoke to peer inside.

  Going to blow…

  “It’s going to explode, McGee. Back off!” I screamed as loud as I could.

  McGee nodded, and hurriedly headed toward his car, where I joined him.

  “Christ,” McGee said, visibly shaken. “He was in there. With his stupid gun drawn.”

  The sound of a shot made McGee flinch and duck. He gave me a “get down” hand signal, and he crouched next to the Chevy, opening the car door as a shield. I lay down behind him—I don’t do crouching.

  “Someone shooting at us?” I asked.
r />   “The bullets in his gun—the heat is setting them off,” McGee said. “Still might be dangerous. You stay put, I’m going to get one of the firemen.” He rose up, eyes fixed on the burning car. “If we can put that out, maybe forensics can—”

  As if on cue, there was another huge explosion, bigger than the one inside the building, and the car turned bright orange and red as a pillar of fire rose up, towered by smoke.

  McGee fell back, on top of me, and struggled to get up. He was as large and heavy as he looked, and if the situation weren’t so dire, it would have been comical as we endeavored to get to our feet like Laurel and Hardy in an old two-reeler.

  “Christ!” McGee roared, as he stood up and peered at the debris of the car as it burned.

  I stood a bit more gingerly. “No chance for evidence now.”

  “Jesus, I never liked the guy, but what a way to go!” McGee said, turning to the wall. Then, with a deep breath, he faced me. “Did he have the envelope?”

  I reached into the back of my pants and extracted the thick stack of wrapped paper.

  McGee nodded. “Good work, Len.” He looked back at the remains of the car. It had burned so quickly that there was little left aside from the metal frame. The tires had melted flat, the rubber oozing and flaming, and there was a black stick figure in the vehicle, all that remained of Roswell Norris.

  “I hope there’s something in these papers that was worth dying for,” McGee observed.

  JACK’S DIARY: THURSDAY

  Another good day, then again, every day is a good day for me. A few more loose ends, and I’ll be home free. The Bahamas are becoming very tempting, and Bermuda is always nice.

  I will miss my home here, with such a lovely view of my city. But a little time away will make memories short and unsolved cases get filed very deeply.

  If things get too hot—now there’s an expression—I’ll just leave and let the lawyers retrieve the funds. However, I want to make sure the insurance company will pay out. Perhaps reducing their building to a smoldering ash would be a strong inducement?